Cool Tips to Preserve Your Child’s Artwork

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post mentioning a unique way of preserving your child’s art by creating a mosaic collage. It got me thinking of other ways to organize all your little Picasso’s works of art that may be accumulating in a box at the back of your closet (that would be me). These are a few ideas to get you started:

Photo Books: Take pictures of their art to include in a photo book. This one comes from Pinhole Press. I wrote a post a few months ago about about my favorite photo books. Not into digital? Scrapbook it.Frame: Kids just love seeing their masterpiece framed and hung with pride. You don’t have to pay a fortune for frames. Pick up vintage frames at a secondhand stores and just paint—super easy and super crafty.

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32 Comments

I just wanted to comment on the magnetic wall suggestion. It’s a lovely idea, but people should keep a couple things in mind. First: magnetic paint is obscenely expensive. Painting a section of wall that large would add up fast especially since, Second: magnetic paint requires multiple coats. And by multiple, I mean I’m not sure how many, because I gave up after 3. At three coats my small panel was minimally magnetic- a strong magnet showed apparent attraction, but not enough to hold it’s own weight. Once I painted a color (blackboard paint) over the magnetic layer, it lost even that minimal magnetic property, and you couldn’t tell I’d spent the whole of the previous day magnetizing it.

Just something to keep in mind. I love all the suggestions I see for magnetic paint, but I often think getting a sheet of thin metal would be more efficient! Good luck!

I have never seen that wallpaper with frames shown above.
My wife and I will be adding this to our DIY projects for this summer.
I hope that this product is available in Canada.
Looks like fun adn the kids will love it.

I am a huge fan of the binders for each of my kids. Because they seem to follow similar patterns in their art development, I worry that when they are grown, I won’t remember whose is whose. So I love the binder idea. For more than the everyday-I-am-bored-so-I-will-draw work, I also frame and put them around the house (bathroom always has room for art!). And we do our own version of the wallpaper as well (although the age difference between my girls makes some of the wallpaper tricky because one is “more sophisticated” than the other:) Haven’t tried the hanging art yet–love it. Will do that next. Thanks for these great and inspiring ideas!

The artwork accumulating in my home is overwhelming. I cannot seem to throw any of them out and I am not sure what to do. It makes sense to take pictures of them as they are stored digitally, but then that adds to the hundreds of thousand pictures I have in my iPhoto. Any ideas in how to store and organize photos stored digitally? I know Mac does a pretty good job, but any tips on prioritizing choice pictures?

Hi Sharon! I’m in the same boat is you. I try and delete the pictures I don’t like to help me cut down on storage space. If you find a digital photo organizational site, please drop me a note and let me know. I’d love to share your findings with our readers.

I love the digital archiving or photobook idea. One of my friends started doing this with her kids’ art, and because she wanted to get the physical artworks out of her apartment, but felt too guilty throwing them away, she started sending them to grandparents, aunts, uncles, close friends etc!

If it’s a really great piece of art (that will be a keeper) that’s on very thin paper or paper that will fade over time, I actually laminate it. This not only helps protect the actual piece of art, but will stop fading, tearing, etc, over time but will also protect it whilst it is hanging up on my walls. Also, you can easily store it in a binder / file when the next big thing needs that wall space!

Great ideas!
My daughter has recently stared taping up her pictures all over her room, and it is making me crazy. I was all set to say something to her when she said “Mom doesn’t my room look beautiful now”. I think it is definitely time for me to implement one of your ideas.

Also, does anyone know where to get decorative magnetic frames for the fridge?

Really great ideas. My kids NEED that wall paper. We framed some of my older child’s artwork and I love it. When I see his first real painting of his first fish in his room it always makes me smile. We made the rope thing and decorated clips with wooden animals together and I just noticed today that he put up new artwork. I like that with this one he can decide what he wants to display. I used these great books from an art store in NY where the pages were plastic sleeves–that was good too. GREAT ARTICLE!!!!!!!

Great ideas!! Love them all, I tend to keep special art work in a storage bin for each child along with school photos, report cards, etc. I really like the binder idea! We have a wire hanger and clips for the kids art work and we got it from Ikea, cheap and so useful!

There are so many great ideas here. I seriously have a pile of drawings at home and have been thinking about how to start organizing them. I love the binder idea- so simple but I never thought about it till your blog! Can’t wait to go out and buy one to start finally putting that pile away!
Thanks!

Love all the ideas! Here is another one if you have a very special artwork: kids’ artwork into masterpieces @ http://ilovemykidsart.com. Here you can customize your artwork background and get it printed on museum quality canvas or poster prints. Also, consider to donate all the artwork you don’t want to keep to Kids’ Art for The Cure program. All selected artwork will be transformed and printed in different products to be sold to the public. 100% of the profit will go to cancer foundations to help find The Cure.

Excellent article. With today’s digital technology, I think more and more people would love to preserve their memories and their children’s output in a photo book. Indeed, residents in New Zealand opt to http://www.my-books.co.nz/ to learn how to make their own photo book.

My wife Lucy designed this cute book/album called ‘The Great Works’ Children’s Artwork Holder, featuring illustrated empty ‘picture frames’ that you can slot the kid’s drawings into – even including ‘plaque’ stickers to write the title/artist name on!http://www.fromlucy.com/shop/great-works/

I found all yr ideas usefull,one suggestion from me is to make a gift wrap out of yr child’s artwork and they can even do their own greetings out of their art work by cutting and pasting them on a plain white thick paper for occasions like Christmas n new year to share with grandparents and friends too instead of spending a fortune over cards at stores…..